The longer I am on Social media the more I question and wonder at how people act on social sites and forums including Adlandpro.

Funny enough hijacking threads is not new and started with forums and has evolved to such places as Twitter and especially Facebook.

I was reading up on hijacking threads and came across another forum that has obviously had the same or similar issues and I wanted to bring it here because "DocJohn" has talked about it with words that are simple and easy to understand.

"Hijacking a thread" refers to behavior that when someone comes into a thread conversation (usually after more than a few posts have been made to a thread) and focuses on one tiny aspect of the original poster's topic, and moves the entire thread off-topic by replying to just that one aspect. Sometimes the hijacker isn't even responding to the original author of the thread, but what someone else said. Then everyone else jumps on the bandwagon and moves the entire thread into something that has little or nothing to do with the original author's post.

Authors who begin a post do so for a reason -- they want to discuss or talk about that one thing. Sure, discussions evolve and can move beyond the original poster's topic. But that's a natural process that moves slowly over usually many pages of posts. Hijacking occurs much more rapidly, and the entire thread often devolves from there quickly.

Most people who engage in this behavior probably don't realize what they're doing, and don't mean to do it.

That's why it's important that before you reply to a thread, you ask yourself a simple question -- "Am I contributing to this thread, or am I changing the topic and/or focusing on some minor aspect that really isn't what this thread is about?"

If the answer is that you're probably focusing on some minor aspect or looking to change the topic altogether, you probably should post a brand-new thread instead. Of, if you want to start a conversation with just one member, consider using a PM instead. "

If you will note when this was written ( 2005) you will see this is not a new issue and one that has plagued people for a very long time.

So how does one deal with this kind of behavior?

Like anything you have options...

1. You can talk to the person about what they are doing

2. You can talk to a moderator and get the offending posts deleted

3. you can stop feeding a troll and ignore them

All of these options are useful..how do you deal with these kinds of people

P.s. There is a difference between thread drifting and thread hijacking